INTRODUCTION

I sit here looking out, filled with an emptiness that spills over and keeps on spilling. There is no end to this boundlessness, this delicious thrill of Presence.

Nothing can contain it, for everything is contained within it. The good and the bad, the black and the white, the harsh and the gentle – simply flavours of Its passage.

Here, here, always here. So simple, so immediate. This is always here.

Call it whatever you will. In truth, This has no name. Too exquisite to speak of, too delicate to touch, delicious, tender, yet so very solid, vast, fathomless.

All that exists comes out of This. All that exists returns to This. No one owns This, yet everyone belongs to This.

This endless well of delight was first revealed to me in 2007, when the imaginary shell containing what I thought I was broke open, revealing what had always been here.

I had always believed I was this concrete separate entity called Enza, living in a big old world, and now the world was in me. I was literally filled with the world, which included the body–mind called Enza.

All ideas about higher or lower selves, all the inner debates about practice or no practice, enlightenment or non-enlightenment, were gone. Now there was only this, totally different from what I had imagined. No mind could have imagined this.

Ever since I could remember I had been addicted to the idea of “spiritual awakening”. At different times in my life I had been engaged in that idea through meditation, reading hundreds of spiritual books, trying to be “present”, questioning my belief systems, and waiting for the moment when the separate self would disappear and with it all my suffering. With the exception of a few wonderful but fleeting experiences, I did not get the awakening I had hoped for until the day when it simply unveiled itself, revealing that it had never actually been hidden.

The searching for “it” outside myself had separated me from the very thing I was seeking. That day I discovered that I was already a part of it and that life was already and had always been complete.

I am often asked what has changed since that day. In truth, nothing at all has changed – nothing except the viewpoint and, with that, everything changes. Now, life is no longer lived through the lens of a separate individual or one who is seeking anything other than what is right here. I am no longer interested in chasing special states because I am happy with what is here now.

Freedom includes all and it is not separate from our everyday dualistic existence, including ordinary thoughts, feelings and perceptions.

The mundane activities of eating, walking and breathing are now spacious openness, pure presence expressing itself in the world. My greatest misunderstanding in the past was to be so focused on attaining the transcendental that I was constantly overlooking the obvious in the most ordinary moment, right here, right now.

Now, my experience is more like when I was a child. As children, before the ego becomes solidified, we are just simply present and we are not yet identified with living in time and space, a past and a future.

As I sit here writing this, I have absolutely no idea where the words are coming from, who is doing it or what it all means. Life is simply lived in this present moment, allowing for this human manifestation to maintain its role in the world while no longer believing in the finite, limited perspectives of “self” and “world” that our minds create.

I still work as the editor/publisher of a holistic newspaper, meeting deadlines and gathering news and stories. I still prepare meals for my family and do the washing and cleaning. I still journey through emotions and thoughts that naturally arise through my day-to-day interactions with the world, yet all of this no longer holds me captive. I am no longer identified as a separate entity that is doing any of this. The thoughts and emotions that come and go I now know are not my thoughts or emotions, and in this knowingness, there is freedom.

It’s not that I have changed into someone more patient, less reactive or more perfect; it’s just that now I have released my investment in all of that. There is no longer any anxiety about non-perfection, neither is there credit for so-called successes or failures.

Now I simply respond to the world around me and allow for the next moment to arise. And in this natural response to the world, I see everything in it as a part of what I really am. Life requests action … and so I act. Life requests stillness … and so I am still. This is not a passiveness to the delicate touch of the moment, but an intimate engagement, allowing each moment to be just as it is. No longer searching for the“why” and the “how”, I simply breathe, look, listen and allow.

There is no end to this allowing. It is an ongoing deepening as I slowly lose more and more of what I think I am. Sometimes this allowing is blissful, sometimes it is painful, yet through it all there is this wakefulness, the clarity and aliveness that wasn’t noticed before, and this is life. Real life. Through this act of allowing, this book started to take shape.

I had been writing for a few years, mostly as a way of helping me to clarify what was unfolding inside me. One day my partner, Leo, asked me to share some of my writings with him and then suggested I consider getting them published. At first I felt some resistance. How would I ever be able to fully communicate my experience? But as the allowing deepened and the doubts began to dissolve, I was left only with what life was asking of me.

Some of the content in this book comes from personal journals, some of it originates from responses to questions asked by family, friends and individuals who follow my blogs – questions regarding enlightenment and the recognition of one’s true self.

You will find that some phrases, concepts and ideas keep repeating themselves throughout the book. In truth, every moment is a fresh opportunity to open to what is, as it is. Each moment is a fresh call to actually see what is truly here, what all of manifest reality is actually arising in.

Just as life offers us infinite opportunities to re-awaken to our true nature, use each repetition in this book to once again inquire into the reality that is being pointed to. The invitation is to look deeper than the words to that which is looking. Then each repetition becomes a doorway to see anew what is always already present and free within you.

There will also be moments when you feel drawn to pause and reflect upon a particular point of inquiry that has a strong resonance for you. This is awareness calling. These moments are doorways to Truth, right here, right now. Welcome them. Stay open and receptive to the inner nudges and give them your full presence, for they are infinitely precious.

The book is divided into four parts and at the end of each part you will encounter a “Presence Pause” that is signalled like this:

PRESENCE PAUSE

There you will find various contemplations and lines of inquiry that will point you to a direct encounter with your enlightened nature. At these points I encourage you to put the book down and contemplate what life is whispering.

You might also consider keeping an ongoing journal of self-inquiry while reading the book. Participating in this way will begin to invite this awareness into your daily life, where there is infinite opportunity for clear seeing. This seeing is really the only practice necessary, not only to awaken, but also to clarify and embody this awakening. To practise Instant Presence simply means to be internally still and undistracted, leaving your experience of the moment (including thoughts, sights, sounds and sensations) as it is, without trying to improve it, correct it or replace it. This is not a passive surrender but a letting go to being totally present and totally relaxed.

As you read these pages, please understand that I don’t have anything you don’t already possess. What you are searching for is what you already are. You are always already free.

This book’s purpose is not to give you more knowledge, more concepts, more beliefs or more practices, but to help point you back to that which shines eternally within you, needing nothing for the revelation of itself. May you come to know, without a doubt, that who you truly are is this freedom. This has always been and always will be so.

All that exists is this freedom, and you are all. You are the awake, boundless, omnipresent consciousness that is right here, right now.

To follow where I am pointing is to abandon all that you know – all your experiences, all your concepts, all your states and conditions — and jump into the unknown. It is to free yourself from all reference points, all limitations and all boundaries. To let go of all hope for a better, more spiritual future for yourself.

The reaching for enlightenment is the last thing this “me” you believe yourself to be does just before it dissolves into pure awareness, your natural original state.

Join me now on a journey to where you already are, this placeless place you have never really left.